U.S. to halt military aid to Egypt after coup, turmoil

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

U.S. to halt military aid to Egypt after coup, turmoil

From Jim Sciutto and Elise Labott

The July coup against President Mohamed Morsy triggered a wave of turmoil throughout the country. This prompted the US to halt military aid to the nation.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The United States will cut off military aid to Egypt in the wake of the July coup against President Mohamed Morsy and the turmoil that has followed, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

The Obama administration withheld some military aid to Egypt in August.

The U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the full suspension has been prompted by an “accumulation of events,” including recent violence against protesters, dozens of whom were killed over the weekend.

The suspension will formally take effect in the coming days, the official said.

The United States has not yet notified the Egyptians of the decision to cut off military aid, a senior official said. The announcement is not expected to be made on Wednesday and has already been pushed back a few times, the official said.

In addition to the suspension of some military aid earlier this year, there has also been a severe slowdown in military shipments from the United States to Egypt, including F-16s.

The Obama administration has not labeled Morsy’s removal from office a coup. Such a designation would require a cut in all but humanitarian aid. In the past, the White House has said it was in U.S. national security interests to keep the aid intact.

Recent violence against protesters is another reason the U.S. was motivated to stop the funding.

But after U.S. calls to the Egyptian military for restraint over the last few months were met with a heavy-handed crackdown on Morsy supporters, Obama canceled a joint military exercise and announced a new review of U.S. aid to Egypt.

Last month, U.S. officials said Obama’s national security team had recommended a cut in aid that included all foreign military financing to the Egyptian military, except funding toward security in the Sinai Peninsula and along the Egyptian border with Gaza.

“This has been coming for quite a while, actually, and President Obama signaled that the United States was slowing down aid to Egypt in his address at the United Nations just a couple of weeks ago,” said Robin Wright, an Arab affairs analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “The United States has become increasingly disillusioned with the way that the military leadership has cracked down on its own people. Over 1,000 died in the early weeks after the military coup, and in the past week, you’ve seen dozens more killed in confrontations.”

CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman said in the short-term, the U.S. decision could have a positive impact on the Egyptian government.

“Immediately, probably, the Egyptian government is going to find it’s going to gain somewhat in terms of local public opinion,” Wedeman said. “Egyptians I’ve already been in touch with about this decision or announcement from the United States that it’s going to cut aid seem to react positively. There seems to be a lot of frustration with the United States, given its role in Egypt over the last two and a half years since the revolution.”

But don’t expect to see Egypt’s military hurting financially, Wedeman said.

“For the Egyptian government, a cutoff in U.S. aid is symbolically significant, but in terms of the actual amount of money they’re getting, it will not make a big difference,” he said.

Wedeman said that’s because Gulf states have been pouring billions of dollars into Egypt since Morsy’s ouster.